Education

Gets Role In

Sports Park

Blockbuster's Lineup

May Include Schools

April 28, 1994|By JOHN GITTELSOHN Education Writer

Special schools for athletes and a mini-mall to teach elementary students about the free enterprise system might someday join a hockey arena, baseball stadium and other attractions at the proposed Blockbuster Park.

Blockbuster Entertainment Corp. officials said they want to make their proposed 2,500-acre complex on the Dade-Broward county line a place for education as well as entertainment. On Wednesday, they met with Broward school and college leaders to discuss ways of working together.

"This is going to be the first of many meetings," Bernard Budd, a Broward developer and consultant to Blockbuster, told Broward Schools Superintendent Frank Petruzielo and Broward Community College President Willis Holcombe. "We want to have a first-class operation and to do that, you've got to be a vital part of the process."

Petruzielo offered several ideas for involving Broward schools in the park:

-- A high school sports magnet program, where student athletes could work with professionals on the Panthers hockey team and Marlins baseball team, which are owned by Blockbuster chairman H. Wayne Huizenga.

-- Another magnet program to let students use a television and movie production complex planned for the park.

-- An "enterprise village," similar to one in Pinellas County, where students could learn about the free-enterprise system by playing the role of shopkeepers, bankers and other business people for a day.

-- A "school in the workplace" for children of Blockbuster Park employees, similar to schools started by five large Dade County employers.

The first of those Dade schools, at American Bankers Insurance Group in the Cutler Ridge area of south Dade, opened in 1987 and conducts classes for 72 students in kindergarten, first and second grade. Next year the Insurance Group is building a $1 million schoolhouse for about 200 students up to fifth grade.

Petruzielo said a school in the workplace could save Broward taxpayers the cost of classroom construction while helping Blockbuster lure and keep a quality work force.

"The parents benefit because they're close to their kids," he said.

The first phase of Blockbuster Park, a hockey arena for 20,000, is supposed to open in 1997, Budd said. That would be followed by a baseball stadium for 50,000, a golf course, television and film studios, hotels and amusement parks. Company officials said 10,000 to 15,000 people could eventually work there.

Both the developers and educators stressed that Wednesday's meeting was basically a brainstorming session. They made no commitments or promises other than to continue talking.

Nothing can happen, they said, until the park becomes a reality. That requires permit approvals from county, regional and state planning and environmental agencies.

Once the park is running, Holcombe said, BCC could start training programs for Blockbuster employees similar to ones offered to employees of the North Broward Hospital District. Many jobs at the park will not require the technical know-how of health care employees, Holcombe conceded. But he said a partnership with the community college is a key to the quality of the park's labor force.

"You don't know exactly what you want and neither do we," Holcombe said. "But if you need a technician to operate a virtual reality machine, for example, we can train them."